


All Zeroed Out

by Call_Me_Your_Monster



Category: The Matrix (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fabricated Reality, Fabricated world, Online Dating, Online Friendship, Online Relationship, Original Female Character(s) - Freeform, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, The future is scary
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-20
Updated: 2018-07-20
Packaged: 2019-06-13 08:52:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15360792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Call_Me_Your_Monster/pseuds/Call_Me_Your_Monster
Summary: In a perfect world, everyone has a soul mate, someone to complete them, someone the share an inextricable bond with... but the world isn't perfect, and it never has been. So when Lex, wakes up one morning with a soul date on her arm reading at all zeros, she is hurt, but not surprised. Sometimes soulmates die before you meet them... but little does she know what this horribly imperfect world of soul bonds has in store for her. Is Lex's soul mate really dead? Or is there more to her zeros than she knows?





	All Zeroed Out

When The System was created, the first Overseers decided that there needed to be something to hold the human race in a state of happy limbo, to make them search for something that would distract them from becoming curious, to keep them in a state of searching and then happiness that would keep them from questioning the way things were, because in a perfect system, questions are dangerous, and while curiosity was not a thing they could stomp out of the human brain, they could fabricate the right system to quell the questions they did not want asked. So they made something seemingly perfect. Soul mates. The one being specially fabricated with a scrap of eachother’s DNA just so, in the way that it makes them inseparable. Destined. Meant to be.

  In a perfect world, everyone has a soul mate. That one person who just… completes you. The one who makes you whole. The one who was destined for you. In a perfect world, that’s how it works, but in the end, the world is never perfect, and no amount of fabrications can make it so. This is how glitches came to be. They were few and far between, and often, they died young, but they existed, much to the annoyance of The Overseers, because once a new set of humans was fabricated, protocol dictated that they could not kill them, just carefully watch them. Glitches in the system were bothersome, because they were genes who didn’t take, whose genetic coding rejected the idea of a soul mate and set the human on its own, doomed to walk the earth alone unless it could find another matchless soul.

  Of course, even the most perfect of worlds is not without death, and so, of course, there was the occasion that a soul would lose it’s match prematurely, leaving some unlucky, originally perfectly matched human to walk the earth alone along with the glitches. Of course, humanity longs for companionship, so eventually, with the help of technology, a lonely glitch created a website to help the unlucky multitudes like him out there to find someone, even if their match was gone. This website was called MatchLess. As technology advanced, MatchLess grew larger, flourished into a fully fledged company, rather than just a small website run out of a bedroom by a lonely man who had lost his soul mate before he could find him, red string of fate suddenly disappearing off his finger one day without warning, leaving him with a pain in his heart and a heavy feeling of sadness. The man who started MatchLess never gave out his name, preferring to stay out of the spotlight, choosing rather to help guide others, and eventually, with the popularity of apps becoming greater than websites, started up one of those to help his subscribers contact eachother with more ease.

  MatchLess was a phenomenon, growing in popularity quickly and allowing many, glitches and otherwise, to find someone who understood them, and through its messageboards, many successful friendships and relationships came to be, each board carefully sorted and curated to most easily assist the members, profiles carefully curated to allow them both communal space to blog and post about their experiences, and personal space to curate to their own personal style. MatchLess was hailed as a lifesaver to many, and so, it came to be, through her own curiosity and a strange sense of loneliness, that a girl named Lexx first joined.

  Lex was a rather typical girl in her mid twenties, and she was, and for all she knew always had been, soulmate-less. There were many types of soul mate bonds, red strings of fate, first sentences said to eachother on the inside of one’s arm, names burned into wrists, soul switching, dream sharing, mental communication, timers and dates, all of them with their own particular stresses that had caused all the girls in Lex’s highschool to screech about them when their own version of knowing their soul mate was out there finally appeared. It happened to everyone at around the age of sixteen, with the odd late bloomer here and there not having their sign appear until seventeen or eighteen, Lex being one of the latest as she woke up one morning in the middle of her nineteenth year to a searing pain on the inside of her right forearm. Wincing, she had ran her hand over the surface, knowing that the reveal of your soul bond was often accompanied with pain, but not wanting to look down, refusing to pull her arms out from below her blankets to reveal it just yet. Heart racing, nerves and excitement flooding her as she took a steadying breath and pulled her arm out to look at it in the half light that the mid morning sun gave her as it trickled in through her dorm window. Squinting slightly, she looked at the numbers now blocked off on the inside of her arm, but something wasn’t right… those couldn’t be zeros, could they? Frowning, she fumbled for her glasses, roughly shoving them on her face as she sat up, staring down at the set of zeros in dismay. But there it was, 00’00’0000, plain as the nose on her face, staring back at her in bold, black typeface script. Her heart dropped into her stomach, which then rebounded into her throat as a cracked sob wrenched it’s way out of her. Zeros on a timer always meant one thing. Her soulmate was dead.

  It took Lex two days to get out of bed, and one more to get back to her classes, prompted by the heavy encouragement of her roommate, Kate, who had come back from her morning class to find Lexx crumpled up in a ball, holding her arm, sobbing into a pillow brokenly. She had taken one look at the numbers and instantly knew what had happened, sighing and sitting down with her, quietly putting an arm around her, the red string on her finger trailing onto the floor and out the door, unseen by anyone but her. Lex didn’t eat that day, and barely the next until Kate had threatened to liquify toast and force her to drink it, and she decided eating was a better fate than facing the ire of the small, curly haired girl that glared at her menacingly as she watched her force down two poptarts. On the third day, under Kate’s watchful eye, she ate breakfast and got dressed, (sweatpants and an old t-shirt, but who cared, it wasn’t like she had anyone to impress anymore) before heading to class. After that day, she resumed her life like normal, though she took to wearing long sleeves in order to cover up the hateful marks on her arm.

  Lex’s life proceeded on in whatever way someone’s can when you assume that you are going to be alone forever and have few friends or hobbies outside of your schooling. Uneventfully. Having no one to distract her from her schoolwork, she graduated with honors, gaining her bachelor’s degree in music production, and moved on, moving out of her parent’s house with a shitty, base level job, a shitty car, but a place to call her own to live and a roommate she didn’t hate who did half the dishes and wasn’t too loud. She settled into a routine, go to work, come home, spend some time fiddling with music on her laptop, make shitty ramen for dinner, go to bed, repeat. It was dull, but it was comforting, and eventually, the sting of knowing she would be alone forever faded into a dull ache. She started wearing t-shirts again, she started being less ashamed of her invalid soul counter, she even went on a date or two, and then, one day, over her morning tea, she happened upon an article in the newspaper about MatchLess. Scanning the article, she sighed and made a face, tapping her fingers idly against the side of the oversized mug as she read. MatchLess, the article stated, is without compare, or so say it’s over two million users. Yes, TWO MILLION, who have either lost or never had a soulmate, are part of this multifaceted online resource for people just like them, searching for someone to complete their heart. Even those not searching for love have found solace, making lasting friendships with people of like minds… The article continued on, but Lex found the rest of it dull, just testimonials from happy users and more explanation of what the new online app was like. Raising an eyebrow, she put the newspaper down and picked up her phone from where it lie on the table next to her, shrugging and muttering to herself, “What have I got to lose…”

  A few moments later, she was inputting her information into the app, beginning her new profile, adding the miscellaneous details it asked for lazily as she finished off her tea. Name? Easy, she just used an old username from her gaming days, it was kind of embarrassing, but honestly, she thought as she punched in Zico216 as her username, who the hell cared? If someone knew who the username was referencing, she’d probably want to talk to them anyway. A slight smile dragged across her face as she filled in the rest of the form, age, gender, soul mark, hobbies, interests, and a short bio. She ruffled a hand through her short, overbleached hair, colored within an inch of it’s life due to boredom, and yawned, taking the last sip out of her mug as she hit confirm on her profile, her picture a black and white photograph of the man her username was taken from, and sighed as a prompt popped up on the screen.

_**"** _ _**Welcome to MatchLess! We’re excited to welcome you to our community and hope you find exactly what you were looking for! Please remember, you can contact us at any time with any questions you have, and we hope you enjoy your stay! Here at MatchLess, everyone has a place!”** _

Raising an unimpressed eyebrow, Lex sighed and punched the okay button at the bottom of the prompt, which was immediately followed by another one.

_**“We took a moment to link you up with some other users who had similar interests as you! Keep in mind, this is not sorted by region, as that information is confidential. Why not give them a follow and start up a chat or two? You never know who you might hit it off with!”** _

Rolling her eyes, Lex muttered at the screen, “Thanks robot, but I’m starting to think you’re just a little too positive for your own good…” Nevertheless, she shook her head and hit the accept button, following the people the overly cheery robot prompt had suggested. This was then followed by two more prompts, one to like posts made by the people she was newly following, and one encouraging her to make a short introductory post using a handy template that it provided for her. By the time she was done, Lex found herself both entirely sucked in, and also entirely regretting her decision to start up this app. Finding that she couldn’t actually proceed into the rest of the app without making the ‘Introductory Post’, Lex sighed and shot off a short post about herself before logging off to get ready for work.

**About me: Single, obviously. Enjoys long walks on the beach and meaningful conversations or you know, something akin to that stuff people put in this kind of thing? This prompt thing says I should say some facts about myself so, here goes. I’m a former music student, I really like animals but I don’t think I’m responsible enough for a pet, I drink too much tea, my favorite color is green and I spend way too much time reading, working and listening to music. Bonus internet points if you understand my username. Thanks for reading, I hope while I’m here I can make some friends. Its nice to know that there’s others out there who aren’t ‘destined’ too. Catch you on the flip side!**

Lex shoved her phone in her pocket as she rushed out the door, second mug of tea in her hand and lunch bag over her arm, and it wasn’t until she came home at the end of the day, kicked off her shoes and flopped down on the couch with a heavy sigh, that she looked at the MatchLess app again. Her eyebrow raised when she noted a new message,

**Jay_Ki23 – Who says catch you on the flip side?**

Lex blinked at the message and snorted out a laugh, rolling her eyes before shooting off a message back,  

 

**Zico216 – I do, obviously. Honestly I was just trying to figure out how to end my damn sentence. I was unaware that this app would make me play 20 questions before I was allowed to do anything.**

 

She sent the message off and sighed, smiling in spite of herself before going about the rest of her evening, unknowing that she had just started what might end up being one of the most important conversations of her life…

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this idea, and I look forward to posting more over time. Updates will be slow, as I have a busy job, but I'll do my best to keep up with at least one every two weeks!


End file.
